


the kind of softness (we have always dreamed of feeling)

by dantique



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, New Year's Eve, POV Dan Howell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-12
Updated: 2018-01-12
Packaged: 2019-03-03 21:37:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13350030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dantique/pseuds/dantique
Summary: The lights on their Christmas tree reflect against the tall windows, shine like tiny stars blinking on the glass. The room smells like pine needles and Phil’s cooking, and the piano music from Phil’s laptop drowns out the distant chatter of partygoers in the apartment next door.Thereisno pressure, with Phil. He can sit right here, while Phil cooks them dinner, and know that in this flat that they share, no one expects anything of him at all. That together they are constantly changing, taking steps to make themselves more happy, in their own time, of their own accord, and none of that has anything to do with the promise of a new year.(Dan and Phil ring in the new year, again.)





	the kind of softness (we have always dreamed of feeling)

**Author's Note:**

> is it too late for new years fic. hope not, here's this anyway!!

They’d considered it. Heading up north like last year to catch up with old friends, or inviting people round to their own flat (new, this year, bigger and brighter and sprawling but _new _)__ to play boardgames and drink fancy wine. But Phil hadn’t really felt like travelling up north again when he’d only just got back two days ago, and a few of their friends have come down with a cold, so in the quiet stillness of their bedroom at 2AM on the last day of 2017 they’d both decided _fuck it_ , they weren’t going to do anything at all.

The scent of pine has curled its way around every piece of furniture upstairs. Dan had thought briefly of lugging the Christmas tree downstairs and dumping it outside their flat, but he can’t really be assed and it just smells so _good _.__

“It’s bad luck, though,” Phil had said when he’d got home from visiting his family, falling asleep with his head in Dan’s lap. “We have to get rid of it by the sixth of January.” Dan had rolled his eyes a little, sifting his hands through Phil’s hair, tried to think of a biting remark and come up with only a soft “okay, you weirdo” and a kiss to Phil’s temple.

Right now though, Dan’s sat at the computer absorbed in Guild Wars 2 and Phil’s in the kitchen dicing a capsicum into tiny pieces. Dan has his headphones on but he can hear that Phil has his laptop open on Spotify, something instrumental playing quietly from the dining table. It’s a soundtrack Dan can’t quite place, but it’s quiet and soothing and pretty in an aching kind of way.

Something about New Years Eve stresses Dan out a bit, if he’s honest. Makes him feel panicked, like there’s not enough time left. Granules of sand pooled at the bottom of an hourglass. He hates the pressure to reinvent, to reflect, to move on. The reminder that time is real, and passing, speeding up, hurriedly pushing everyone forward. The idea of time as a construct with any meaning at all frightens him just as much as the thought that it means nothing, so he tries not to think about it, tries to just have a good time anyway, tries not to bring down the mood of anyone else.

It’s different this year, though. Dan glances up from his seat at the computer, slides his headphones off his ears. Phil’s stood at the stove with his back to him, prodding the vegetables he’s frying with a spatula. He's swaying his head to the music, lost in some other world.

“Whatcha making?” Dan’s voice is a bit raspy with disuse, but it shakes Phil out of his trance and he turns to face Dan. He’s got his glasses on, and his hair’s pushed back off his face, and he’s wearing an old blue hoodie and track pants.

“Veggie stir fry,” he replies, shouting a little louder than necessary over the sound of the sizzling vegetables. “That okay?”

“Sounds ideal to me,” Dan says, and he gives Phil a thumbs up. Phil grins and turns back to the stove, takes a sip of wine from his glass on the counter.

The lights on their Christmas tree reflect against the tall windows, shine like tiny stars blinking on the glass. The room smells like pine needles and Phil’s cooking, and the piano music from Phil’s laptop drowns out the distant chatter of partygoers in the apartment next door.

There _is_ no pressure, with Phil. He can sit right here, while Phil cooks them dinner, and know that in this flat that they share, no one expects anything of him at all. That together they are constantly changing, taking steps to make themselves more happy, in their own time, of their own accord, and none of that has anything to do with the promise of a new year. He watches Phil expertly toss the stir fry in its pan with a strange sort of domestic pride, and quits his game to get the plates out. _ _  
__

__

* * *

 

There’s a balcony, in this flat. Two of them actually, one downstairs on the ground floor and one off the upstairs kitchen. It had been Dan’s favourite thing about their old place in Manchester, quiet evenings stood with his elbows resting on the railing, listening to Phil in the kitchen attempting to recreate a marinara sauce from the Jamie Oliver cookbook his mum had given him for Christmas, softly mumbling the instructions to himself the way he does when he’s forgotten that the world exists around him.

This balcony is different. Better, he thinks, just objectively. This one doesn’t look out on a prison, for one thing. They’ve got a wooden bench to sit on, and a collection of house-plants in coloured pots, and a little ceramic dish that Phil put on the railing to fill with bird seed (despite some complaints from the neighbours). It’s gone eleven, and it’s freezing outside, but something compels Dan to slide open the balcony doors and slip outside, curl up on the bench. He feels unusually still and quiet for New Years, like for once he has slowed down and each thought that enters his mind does so with permission.

He doesn’t hear Phil step onto the balcony, looks up and realises he’s left the door open, a quiet invitation to join him outside. Phil stands there, arms full of blanket, barely managing to keep a solid grip on the bottle of champagne and two mugs he has with him.

“Jesus, careful careful careful.” Dan’s instinct to catch the things that Phil so easily drops has been perfected over the past eight years, and he manages to reach up and rescue the champagne from smashing on the balcony floor.

“This is the good shit,” Dan says, shuffling over to make room for Phil. “Spent 50 pounds on it, can’t have it smash and go to waste.”

“All the pigeons would get drunk.” Phil draws his knees up against his chest, shakes out the blanket. “It’d be a pretty wild New Years Eve for them, at least.”

“Fuck, imagine the complaints from the neighbours if that happened,” Dan says, as he pours champagne into a mug and hands it to Phil.

“We’d be evicted,” says Phil, who waits until Dan’s poured his own mug and placed the bottle of champagne on the ground before arranging the blanket around their shoulders.

Dan folds his own legs up against his chest, mirroring Phil, and sits still as Phil tucks the blanket around them both. There’s not much room on the bench, especially for two people as tall as them, but they make it work. _We make everything work, somehow _,__ Dan thinks, and the truth of the statement doesn’t so much hit him as it does nestle comfortably inside his chest. He takes a sip of champagne from his mug (an old one Phil got from Florida a few years ago). Phil’s laughing to himself quietly, tongue flicking between his teeth, eyes crinkling, cheeks pink in the soft glow of the street-lamps down below.

“What?”

“Champagne out of a mug.” He’s still giggling as he takes a sip from his own mug. “So fancy.”

He’ll never admit it to Phil, but he finds the whole situation so stupidly endearing he doesn’t quite know what to do with himself, so he shakes his head in an attempt to be derisive and ends up having to bite down on the inside of his cheeks to keep from grinning too hard.

Phil pokes him in his dimple, gentle in that way Phil always is. He’s clumsy and completely lacking in spatial awareness and his hands constantly shake, just slightly, but he is never obnoxious or abrasive, and the way he touches Dan in quiet moments like this, just the two of them, like he never wants to hurt Dan despite the shake of his hands, makes Dan curl closer into him and rest his head on Phil’s shoulder. Phil’s arm comes up around Dan’s shoulders, and he tilts his head slightly to rest it on top of Dan’s.

Dan thinks, _it would be so easy to fall asleep right now _,__ the distant sounds of some nearby party, the warm glow of the streetlights, Phil’s arm warm and steady around him. He feels Phil shift to dig his phone out of his pocket and check the time.

“Nearly midnight,” he mumbles.

“How long?”

“Eleven minutes.” Phil tucks his phone back into his pocket, rearranges himself again. “Are you falling asleep?”

Dan shakes his head, stifles a yawn.

“You old man.” Phil’s voice is filled with delight, the champagne and the wine he'd been drinking while he'd cooked dinner bubbling his words. Phil’s a good drunk. Alcohol just makes him even chirpier than he is sober, muddling up his words and laughing at himself, easing his social awkwardness and making him more confident. He’s never angry, or sleazy, or even particularly loud.

“Shut up,” Dan says, quietly, and then, “Have we ever done this before?”

“Done what?”

“New Years. Just us.”

Phil thinks for a moment. “Don’t think so?”

They’ve spent every New Years Eve together since they met. At a party in London, that first year. They’d only been together, officially, for about a month and they’d spent most of the night glued to each other’s side, sneaking off to make out at every opportunity. There’d been other parties, nights in at their place playing games Phil had invented, trips up north to see Phil’s old school friends.

“Do you wish we had people over or something, instead?” Phil asks, and Dan can feel the vibration of Phil’s jaw against his own temple when he talks from where he’s still leaning against him.

“No, I don’t.” Dan reaches beneath the blanket, finds Phil’s fingers, plays with them absent-mindedly. “Do you?”

“No way,” he says, fitting his fingers around Dan’s and squeezing. “This way we didn’t have to spend three hours frantically cleaning.”

“Mm.” Dan squeezes back. “Hoovering up all those pine needles.”

“God,” says Phil. “Actual hell.”

“Time check?”

“11:58.” They sit up slightly, stretch the cricks out of their necks. Phil gets a countdown up on his phone, and Dan pours them both another mug of champagne.

“Five,” Phil says, and Dan glances at the phone. He counts it down in a whisper that freezes in the cold air, and through the gap in the buildings across from theirs he watches fireworks burst from the dark stillness of the night.

Phil lets go of his hand and cups Dan’s face, impossibly gentle.

“Happy new year,” he says, voice low and quiet, and he kisses Dan softly. He pulls back, but Dan chases his lips, kisses him again. He puts his mug on the ground, loops his arms around Phil’s neck loosely.

“It was a good year,” he says, watching Phil’s eyes flicker across his face, “for us.”

2017 had been quiet, compared to the year before. Meant for little changes, personal growth. He thinks of the Isle of Man, rounding out the year. A trip in January for Phil’s birthday, seaside walks and crisp air and mud soaked into his jacket, and a flush to his cheeks that wasn’t usually there. Another trip just a week or so ago, an early Christmas with the Lesters. Darts at the local pub, Kathryn’s home-made mince pies (the deserving winner of their competition), presents from Phil’s family.

He thinks of moving house, swapping their cramped old apartment with its gas leaks and loud noises and its peeling wallpaper with this new one. Spacious and clean, walls made of glass and a bedroom just for the two of them. A temporary space, only meant for a year or two, to tide them over until after all the touring, when it’s time for the house they’ve spent so many nights in bed together talking about, planning, dreaming of.

He thinks of Singapore, hot and sticky but just for them, not for any reason other than they wanted a holiday. And of Florida, three weeks with the Lesters, the lengths to which he’d gone to stay with them, watching a storm roll by from the window of the bedroom he’d shared with Phil, playing boardgames with Phil’s family, a subtle anxiousness he’d felt at the implications of joining them on their holiday that had somehow been soothed by Kath’s hand on his forehead and the ridiculous sight of Phil locked out of the house.

He thinks of the curls on his head and a straightener packed away, of a video flirting openly with men and women, of medication stopped and of exercise and healthy eating and self-care, and of telling his audience about his depression, and of Phil by his side throughout absolutely all of it. He thinks of authenticity, of the conscious effort he had made this year to be more himself, and he hopes that it’s been worth it. He thinks that surely it has.

Their phones buzz with well wishes for the new year, a text from Kathryn ( _Happy New Years lovely boys, may 2018 be so wonderful for you_ and a fireworks emoji) and one from Dan’s own mum ( _happy nye darling, to you and phil x_ ) _ _,__ and Dan feels Phil shivering in the cold.

He stands up slowly, reaches a hand back toward Phil. Phil grabs it and stands up (with some effort), the blanket still draped around his shoulders. Dan leads them inside, out of the cold and into their flat, with its warm central heating and twinkling fairy lights and crisp smell of pine that Dan’s sure must have soaked into the floorboards by now. He shuts the balcony door behind them and they stand in the kitchen, twenty minutes into 2018. Dan steps toward Phil, and Phil extends the blanket to wrap around Dan as well.

“I feel like we’re a cocoon,” Phil says, somewhat nonsensically, and Dan wraps his arms around Phil’s waist, rests his head on Phil’s shoulder. Their phones lie abandoned on the kitchen counter, and Dan lets his eyes flutter closed.

“Take me to bed?” Dan says, arms resting comfortably on Phil’s waist under the blanket.

“Should probably tweet first,” Phil replies, sounding suddenly, stunningly sober, “let people know we’re alive.” Dan sighs and rolls his eyes at the reminder that they’re not actually alone in the world, just the two of them, reluctantly attempts to disentangle himself from the blanket and Phil, but Phil clings on tight.

This year, he knows, will be very different to the last. They’ll spend five months of it travelling, performing to thousands of strangers. Dan is more excited for it than he’s probably ever been for anything in his life, and yet the enormity of what they’re about to embark on is not lost on him. It is comforting, he thinks, to know that when he wakes up in the morning, on the first day of a new year, it will be beside this man who is currently stood in their kitchen wrapped in a blanket, glasses sliding off his face, messy hair pushed off his forehead, tipsy off champagne drunk from a mug, swaying Dan gently and mumbling something about the life-cycle of caterpillars. Phil, the one constant in his life over the past eight years, the only person who could ever understand what Dan’s been through, because he’s the only other person who has lived it.

His breathing has timed itself to Phil’s subconsciously, chests pressed together beneath the blanket that’s wrapped around them, and Dan notices that the piano music is still spilling quietly from Phil’s laptop on the kitchen counter. It’s warm, and he’s sleepy, and Phil’s glasses are digging kind of uncomfortably into Dan’s shoulder, but he feels a resounding sense of calmness that he really only ever feels in moments like this one, just the two of them in a space meant for nobody else. It’s grounding, he thinks, so he lets himself stay here, unreachable to the rest of the world, even if just for a moment.

**Author's Note:**

> hi, it has been ten months since i last wrote anything creative so hopefully this makes at least some sense, i hope you enjoyed it!!! 
> 
> feedback is much appreciated <3
> 
> come chat to me on tumblr [@dantique](http://dantique.tumblr.com)


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